The Howl of the Northern Wolf

I hugged him and I hid my face under the pillow.

A few minutes later I felt Oliver's hand gently touching my arm. He touched me with just his fingertips - a minuscule, almost imperceptible caress.

"Irma, you should go to your bedroom now," he said in a very quiet voice. "That was not a good idea. We should nie-ka-da do this again."

He emphasized the Lithuanian word "niekada." It means "never ever."

I left my parents' bedroom in shame, with my head down.

When I left, I imagined I'd be greeted by a crowd of screaming women pointing fingers at me. I expected them to throw stones at me. I had not passed my ritual. I'd been rejected by the wise king Solomon as unworthy.

I started crying. I was totally crushed. I felt like I should be stoned to death and my body had to be thrown down from the city walls for the wild beasts to devour.

VII. The Day at the Zoo and the Night in the Ballet

Of all the subjects at school, physics was my favorite. It says that you can calculate and predict the movement of basically every particle in the cosmos, and if you put all those particles together and calculate it all, you can tell everything that is going to happen from the big bang until the end of the world. In short, everything in the world is predetermined.

That is how I justify my feelings. Why should I feel guilty that one day some unknown comet crashed into my world? Whether I wanted it or not, it happened.

The first night I cried and I hated him.

The second night I didn't cry and I hated him.

A week later I hated him.

A month later I hated him.

Three months later I hated him more.

Most of the time, Oliver acted towards me like a polite stranger. I am sure he had strong feelings about me too, but he pretended that he felt nothing at all.

My mother noticed that our relationship had cooled to the level of the ice age and she tried to reconcile us. I don't know if she suspected something about me and Oliver or if she had some other interests of her own. Both Oliver and I assured her that we got on just fine.

I talked to Oliver politely. I didn't tell him to go to hell. I did not tell him to go fuck himself. I thanked him politely if he bought me a present. I declined politely if he invited me to go and spend half a day in the woods. I smiled at him with the polite smile of a Nordic woman, just barely showing my teeth, and in my heart I hated, I hated, I hated him.

I tried to spend as little time as possible at home so that I wouldn't have to see Oliver. If you hate somebody like that, it's exhausting. You wish you had friends you could tell about it. My best friends would certainly have been curious to hear about it all, but telling them about my love for, and hatred of, my stepfather seemed inappropriate.

So who would listen to me? Who could understand me?

One day I made some friends who really understood my secret and knew how to keep it.

To avoid having to go home, one day I went to a mini-zoo. There, I saw some gray wolves running back and forth in a cage. Next to that cage there were several benches, one of which was almost completely hidden by falling willow branches.

That became my favorite place to spend the afternoons and do my homework. It seemed to me that after a few days the wolves had started to recognize me. They even seemed to be happy that I was coming. They would look at me with their intelligent brown eyes and say, "This is the way the world goes - man is a wolf to a woman. If you want to survive, you have to be a she-wolf to men. There is no other way. "

I was desperately in love, and I hated the man I loved. I was so terribly unhappy. Was there anything I could do about it?

"You can howl", the wolves would say. " That usually helps".

One day, late in the spring, I was sitting on my favorite bench under the willow tree and reading my notes for the Physics graduation exam. It was a day like many others, with the exception that it was my 19th birthday.

People passed by looking at the animals. The shadows of the willow branches slowly moved around me. Then the sky turned gray and it started to rain. At first it was tiny drops, then bigger ones, and then it was pouring. There was no one around anymore.

"Wouldn't it be nice, if the world was empty," I thought, "if there were no people, just zebras and antelopes and wolves? No school teachers, no mother, no Oliver - damn him! - no stupid children who throw pebbles at my wolves... nobody. Or, even better, if there was nothing at all. Just emptiness and infinite space. I would prefer that to my current state of misery."

It was getting late. The zoo was about to be closed. I was all wet and I was getting cold. Then I heard voices in the distance. They were coming my way. It was a couple of lovers, probably the same age as me. The girl was pretty; the boy was handsome. They were running through the rain, hand in hand, and then hid under my willow tree just on the other side. In the evening darkness, they did not care if I was there or not.

"That's not fair - you promised!" she said, "You are a criminal now. I will never forgive you! Oh, I will torture you until you die!"

"No, no, no!" the boy cried out with a mock fear. "No, please, don't kill me! I said I would think about it, but I never promised anything! It is you who is a criminal! A pretty criminal with a lovely bippy! " There was a sound of a slap and a giggle.

"Stop it! Now I really have no choice but to kill you! No touching anything until you keep your promise."

"Okay, okay, I will think about it."

"No, don't say that again: 'I will think about it.' I want you to promise that this Sunday you'll come and meet my dad and mom."

"Maybe."

"Oh, you are impossible!"

"Let me kiss you!"

"No." The girl tried to sound harsh, but her "no" was clearly open for negotiation.

"So I can't get anything now - not even a kiss?"

"You would get everything if you kept your promises."

"Everything?!"

There was silence. I heard raindrops quietly rustling the willow leaves.

"Yes, everything," she said in a gentle, dreamy voice.

"Yes! Hey, wolves, did you hear it!? Ooooh - o - yo - yo yoooooh! " The boy yelled like Tarzan, thumping on his chest, "Everything! Let's go! Let's go now!"

"Wait, kiss me, please," said the girl, "kiss me a thousand times."

"One... two... three... thousand!"

They kissed - just once - and then ran away through the rain.

I imagined what it would feel like if I were that girl - what would it feel like if Oliver were that boy.

"Wait, kiss me, please. " That's what she'd said. "Kiss me a thousand times. "

There, rain pouring over me, I realized that I didn't want the universe to be just an empty space. I did not wish that all people would vanish from the earth. I realized that I didn't want to hate Oliver anymore. No matter how bitter I was, it wasn't his fault. He was not to blame that some unknown comet had crashed into our world. Whether he wanted it or not, it had happened.

The rain wasn't going to stop. I said goodbye to my wolves, stood up, and went home.

***

When I got home, my mother was angry. "Why don't you answer your phone?" she demanded. "Oliver and I have to go to the ballet today. Now all of a sudden I have a deal falling through. I have to go to Kaunas. You should go with him instead. It's a good show and the tickets were awfully expensive. It would be a pity to waste them."

"What's the show? " I asked.

"Don Quixote. That's all anyone talks about now. There are a couple of dancers there who just do wonders on stage. The tickets are sold out for the whole season."

I had already heard about the show, because my friend Laima had seen it, and she was in awe of it.

"I have nothing to wear," I said.

"Don't be a pest. You can choose anything you like from my wardrobe. I've got to go - my taxi is waiting. Your show is starting in an hour. You'd better get going."

Twenty minutes later I came down the staircase dressed up in a dark pink jacket, a matching skirt, and a beige blouse buttoned up with a lot of tiny pearl buttons.

Oliver looked at me and said, "Irma, it has hurt me a lot that we haven't been getting along these last few months. It felt like an ice age. I did not mean to hurt your feelings. It's just... complicated. Can we make a truce for a day?"

"Maybe I'd agree to a truce, but first, tell me: do I look pretty?"

"Hm. Not ugly, for sure."

"Not ugly!?!"

"All right all right, you look smashing gorgeous," he said with a laugh.

"OK," I said, "a truce it is. Until midnight. Then I'll turn into a Cinderella again, and our car will turn into a pumpkin. We'd better hurry. The ball is about to begin."

***

Oliver handed me the binoculars and whispered, "Take a good look at the primarios, the pair in the center - see? Her character is called Kitri. And the guy who dances with her is Basil. They are a real sensation now. Two enormously talented dancers appeared out of nowhere. Pretty average at the beginning and now they are world class. And they keep improving. They keep outdoing themselves. With every show they are upping the ante."

The powerful marine binoculars were completely unsuitable for watching the ballet. They magnified so much that you couldn't get the full picture of what was happening on stage. The view through the binoculars was right there in front of my nose: the slender legs covered in pointe shoes were dancing and turning, the silk ribbons in the hair were spinning, the colorful "gypsy" skirts were fluttering - right there. It seemed that if you just stretched out your arms, you could touch those dancers' skirts.

I adjusted the focus and looked at the main couple in the middle of the stage. You could see details that you wouldn't even see sitting in the front row: a drop of sweat on Basilio's forehead, and - I thought - a scratch on Kitri's shin.

It was easy to see that that pair of dancers were indeed far superior to the others. The audience kept bursting into applause, for him and for her. I looked at them both closely through the binoculars. They had my attention glued.

The guy looked as if he had been born in the wrong century. It wasn't at all how I would have imagined a male ballet dancer. My stereotype of them was that they were unmanly or gay. He, on the other hand, seemed to have got into ballet by mistake, just because he couldn't sign up for gladiators or conquistadors. He had a clean-shaven face, angular jaw and a nose that went straight down. I was quite sure he was not a gay man with mild manners; he was a man-robber, a man-brawler, a man-predator - the kind of man I'd be afraid to meet walking alone on a dark night... afraid, but also curious.

The girl was blonde, with a very pleasant, gentle appearance. She had a slim body, but you wouldn't say that she was skinny or shriveled up, as many ballerinas are. Again, she did not fit the stereotype. I was convinced that all ballerinas were anorexic. She was nicely rounded both above and below - all the right junk in all the right places.

It doesn't take long to be enchanted by truly talented people. Looking at them, it seemed that dancing ballet was pure pleasure for them, as though the audience didn't even exist, and they needed no money or fame... The guy's eyes just sparkled. The girl's smile was wide. Through the binoculars, I could see that smile up close, and I knew that it was real - not a performance in the slightest.

"A very beautiful couple," I whispered, as if to Oliver, as if to myself. "They seem to be dancing for their own pleasure."

Watching the stage through the binoculars, I had a very unusual feeling - a feeling of being both there and not-there. The image was detached from my other senses. It was as if I'd transported myself to the stage and was one of those background dancers in brightly colored gypsy skirts. My soul, forgetting everything, had moved to the stage, while my body had remained somewhere far away, up there on the second balcony.

My soul and my body were each a part of a performance that felt real, and of a reality that felt like a performance. All of it was happening at that moment. All of it was happening now.

Basil takes Kitri's hand on stage.

And then, far away, on the second balcony, someone takes my hand.

I feel a distant touch.

Is this really happening to me?

Basil pulls Kitri close on stage and turns her around, holding her fingers.

I feel that someone is also touching my shoulder. Someone's fingers grip my fingers hard.

Is that Oliver touching my hand?!?

I keep the binoculars close to my eyes and question my own senses. No, it can't be. I don't believe it. Oliver and this touch are completely incompatible. I must be imagining it.

And then I get a haunting - a strong illusion that this Basil from the stage, his alter ego, has somehow ended up next to me.

Yes, there is a muscular, energetic, aggressive man sitting next to me - a brigand, a gladiator, a conquistador - the kind of man I would be afraid to meet walking alone at night. I'd be afraid... and... I would also like to experience meeting a man like that in the dark woods... someday. Just once, I would like to walk through the woods on a dark night, with only the moon shining, and see a shadow blocking my way - to know what it feels like, and to know what it means.

A husky voice would ask, "Isn't it dangerous for a woman to walk alone like this?"

What would happen then? Whatever would be, would be.

I can't put the binoculars down; I can't take my eyes off the image. It's night onstage; the moon is shining. Don Quixote is fighting the mill with his lance.

I don't know if it is real or just in my imagination: some strange man, full of brute strength, is hugging my shoulders.

I should move, but I cannot. I am there and not there; I am here and not here.

My cheeks flush. A shuddering sense of danger pervades my body that I cannot overcome. My knees and my hands are trembling. A shiver runs down the back of my neck.

Without taking the binoculars off my eyes, I take a look at the audience. The Opera and Ballet Theatre is packed. There are probably over a thousand people, and all of them are concentrating on the stage. Nobody is looking at me; nobody sees me. My body sits in the last row of the balcony, but I cannot see myself through the binoculars - too close.

By moonlight, I am alone in the forest.

Once again, the audience bursts into applause. What happened? I return to the stage with my binoculars and find myself again in a flurry of colorful clothes, among girls who are lifted up by the waist by the guys and flown around.

I flinch suddenly, feeling that someone has put his hand on my knee. It seems rough, bristly. It's him: that dark shadow of a man in the night.

I feel him touching me, caressing my inner thigh. I wish that bear would pull his dirty paw away from me. "Dirty paw" is such a delicious cliché. I enjoy saying it again in my mind: "Get your dirty paw off me! "

But in reality, I'm not saying anything. I try to turn my knees away, but a hand squeezes my thigh and brings them back.

The whole audience is silent. No one hears me; no one sees me. All the spectators have their attention glued to the stage. And who am I to be different from the thousand people watching the ballet and holding their breaths? Me too - I am like everyone. I am silent, shaking, my knees pressed hard together. It's night here in a dense forest, and I have nowhere to run.

There's a fight on stage, and then Basil falls to the ground.

The stranger's hand retreats from my thigh.

"Thank goodness! " I laugh to myself in my mind, uttering the lines of a different play while stuck in a play myself. " I seem to have escaped from the hands of that scoundrel. That grizzly with the dirty paws! "

Basil doesn't move. Through the binoculars, I seem to be right next to him, looking at his face at close range.

And then, somewhere in the distance, my body feels this strange, unknown man slowly undoing the buttons of my jacket.

My back is shivering again. I can feel the image starting to blur, because my eyes are wet.

I know, I know, I am not a lunatic. I'm perfectly aware that the hands and fingers that are touching me are Oliver's hands and Oliver's fingers. But maybe I want to pretend that I am a simple-minded Spanish village girl and that I don't understand anything. Maybe I am not even here.

Why can't I put down those stupid binoculars and come back to myself? I feel that the buttons of the jacket are all undone and the buttons on the shirt are next, and it's a bit like I'm trying to get out of it, but I am weak and meek, and in no time at all the buttons on the shirt are undone up to my neck.

I am being carried away by my fantasy and ballet music. My feelings are stronger than my common sense. I believe, I know: this isn't Oliver. I would never let him touch me; I hate him! No! This is a male predator in the depths of the forest, touching me. I know what he wants; I know that I won't be able to resist him. It was he who killed Basil. What a scoundrel with the dirty paws! And now he is going to rape me, roughly, without asking or sparing me, completely against my will. Well, if I like it or I don't like it, I have to accept my fate. This is what happens to a silly Spanish girl in a colorful skirt and ribbons in her hair who wandered alone into a gloomy forest at night. She has nobody to blame but herself.

A tear rolls down my cheek. I try to hide in my chair, helpless, but the dirty paws find me easily. I feel their sticky, greasy touch on my belly, as if that scoundrel would like to check where he would make me pregnant. " Take your dirty paws off me! Don't touch me! Don't you dare to touch me!!" I scream in my mind, but nobody hears my voice. That's no use. There is no help coming. I am going to be raped. Damn you, Oliver. I hate you! I hate you I hate you I hate you.

Then Kitri reappears on stage. She leaps to her lover with a balletic stride, theatrically bends over Basil and begins to resuscitate him.

No no, Basil is dead; you cannot revive him.

Kitri's face shows sorrow and despair. I am so deep into the show that I feel another tear rolling down my cheek, and another, and another. I raise my hand and wipe it away, but I don't take the binoculars away from my eyes.

In the scene, the beautiful Kitri picks up Basil's hand and puts it to her chest, as if to say, "My heart, dear Basil, whether you live or die, will always be with you!"

I feel a man's hand touching my chest at the same time by my heart. I feel a lump rising in my throat, out of fear and out of excitement. He hasn't violated me yet, but I feel it in his touch that it is getting closer.

And Basil - is he really dead? The orchestra falls silent and the audience goes silent. What, is he really dead?

"Ha ha!" I laugh quietly through my tears.

Basil is still lying on the stage floor pretending to be dead, but he seizes the perfect opportunity. Kitri has put his hand to her chest, and Basil's hand starts to move. The "dead" Basil touches the breasts of the beautiful Kitri through the corset. Haha!

A wave of laughter sweeps through the audience. It is a ballet joke.

Through the binoculars, I saw everything so very closely. A second passed and I began to realize that this was not just a staged movement. No no no - it was real! It wasn't just an innocent stage play. Basil really took the opportunity to squeeze Kitri's breast.

I caught Kitri's face on the scene. No, it was definitely not just acting. She smiles a mischievous smile that makes it immediately clear that it was not an innocent touch.